Category: 1984

UWF1 has such a distinct flair-Battlarts may be the closest comparison, but Battlarts was essentially Yuki Ishikawa and friends wrestling in the basement doing cool stuff which came to mind. It didn’t really present the revolutionary bridge proto shoot-style did nor it did have actual stars and hot crowds. The orange apron mats quickly stood out as did the fact reaching their area was enough for a rope break-actually touching the ropes or extending one of your limbs underneath them wasn’t a necessity. The grappling here wasn’t particularly complex-blocking a double wristlock by using a knee, rolling out of armbars, kicking away your opponent’s arm to get a full armbar etc. are nice detailed work compared to the average “sit in an illogical hold for a while, occassionally yell”, but they’re a far cry from the style’s peak. The takedowns were more interesting than the grappling-the one Tiger set up with a feint kick was especially sweet. Maeda answered with suplexes you see he did hundreds of squats for, the finishing stretch had lots of fun head kicking and Super Tiger’s insistence on using classic prowres offence gave them a clear focus to build around. ***1/2

Schultz is the guy that slaped a reporter once right? Seems fitting he’d be challenging Inoki for the World’s Martial Arts title. This was fun-Schultz controlled the match with basic holds but Inoki’s comebacks were really good-he went after Schultz with nice slaps and awesome looking punches. Schultz also executed a Suplex by dropping Inoki more on his head/neck which was….not exactly what I excpected out of 1984 WWF. **3/4

This is my favourite Fujiwara/Super Tiger match. They work it with Fujiwara having the upper hand on the mat and Tiger being the dominant striker but the gaps aren’t huge and both can hang and fire back in both departments. Fujiwara is awesome here, busting out awesome takedowns, countering Tiger’s strikes, reversing his holds on the mat etc. but he also has all time great punches and just rocks Tiger with them when they’re standing. There’s a really great moment when Fujiwara starts choking Super Tiger with a Sleeper and Sayama sells it with this disgusting cough. Finishing stretch is just unreal with Sayama killing Fujiwara with brutal kicks seemingly forever and his knee drop is also up there with the best there have ever been. Fujiwara is the master at blocking kicks and reversing everything so you can buy he could come back at any time but Sayama just keeps on kicking him in the head and destroying him and it’s this super dramatic struggle and then one time when Fujiwara finally gets a comeback in he gets cocky and throws a headbutt that knocks HIM down. That spot played up so many things, from Fujiwara’s arrogance to the damage of Sayama’s offence neutralizing a spot that I don’t think had ever been neutralized before. And he just keeps on killing him and pretty much invents the shoot style KO/TKO finish in the process.*****